Amazon isn’t recommending “more expensive” items to consumers, it’s offering different products. It should be recommending the best product for the user at the price it can offer the product at.

The fact that the product exists $1 cheaper on another site does not make it not the best recommendation for the customer’s need. If I search “tablet” are you saying I should be recommended a cheap off brand tablet promoted to me because Amazon has the cheapest price or an iPad even though I can buy an iPad on apple.com for $10 cheaper?